At the end of the exercise, open your eyes, stretch your body, and slowly rise from the chair. Several guidelines will help you as you begin:

1. The more you practice a skill, the greater your ability. So, be dedicated to this project and practice, practice, practice.

2. During the ten seconds of tensing, tense only the muscle groups described. Let the rest of your body be relaxed and loose.

3. Always continue breathing while you are tensing a muscle group. Never hold your breath while tensing.

4. During each fifteen-second relaxation phase, focus on your breathing and mentally say your cue word -- "relax" or "loosen" -- with each exhalation.

5. Don't evaluate or judge how well or how poorly you do during each practice. This is not a test. Simply practicing each day, no matter what you experience, will ensure progress. You are creating new, unconscious circuits in your brain. How you feel consciously is not a measure of your progress.

6. Some days you will find it quite hard to concentrate. Your mind will tend to wander to a variety of thoughts: "I've got to get back to my housecleaning." "What should I make for supper?" "This isn't working. I'm still tense." "I've got to remember to pay those bills." These kinds of distracting thoughts are normal; everyone experiences them. It does not mean that the process is failing.

As soon as you notice that you have drifted off course, let go of those distracting thoughts and return to your task. Do not feel angry or disappointed with yourself. Do not let that be a reason to quit the exercise. Your body and mind are still benefiting, still learning about control, still creating those new circuits. Stay with it.

7. You may do the exercise any time during the day or evening. It is best to avoid starting immediately after a meal, since your body is busy with digestion then and you are less alert mentally.

8. Do not expect immediate and magical relief from the practice. This process, repeated over time, trains your muscle groups to respond to a cue.

Some people will notice changes from the practice. You may find that you are more alert and rested, have an improved appetite and sleep better, are in a more positive mood and feel less overall tension. If any of these take place, consider them "icing on the cake." Your primary task is to practice every day for five weeks.

9. Some people have difficulty developing images to use during the "safe place" visualization at the end of the program. An alternative to the "safe place", called "One Hundred Counts", is presented in Chapter 14 of the self-help book Don't Panic.

Generalized Relaxation and Imagery

Some people find that a passive technique to quiet the mind and relax the body is more suited to their personal style. You will have two choices if you prefer a technique of this nature. One is called Generalized Relaxation and Imagery, and the second is a meditation practice.

In Cue-Controlled Deep Muscle Relaxation, you rely on tensing the muscles first as a way to experience relaxation. As an option, or for an occasional change of pace, you may want to try this twenty-minute Generalized Relaxation and Imagery exercise. In this practice you will focus only on relaxing -- not tensing -- your muscles. In addition, several new visual images are added to help you increase your sense of comfort and well-being as you enjoy peace and quiet. A pre-recorded tape is available. (See the Self-Help Store).

Meditation

You may, after considering all three methods, prefer meditation instead of a relaxation technique as a way to release tensions.

Meditation is a family of mental exercises that generally involve sitting quietly and comfortably while focusing on some simple internal or external stimulus, such as a word, one's breathing pattern, or a visual object. In relaxation, the individual engages in a number of mental, and sometimes physical, activities. In meditation, the person is physically still and has a much narrower focus of attention.

There are a number of potential benefits to learning meditation, and I will explain them later in this section. These benefits fall within two general categories. First, meditation helps you to gain control of your physical tension by eliciting the Calming Response. Studies show that during meditation, as well as during relaxation, the heart rate and respiration rate slow down and blood pressure diminishes. Over time, meditators report feeling less daily anxiety, and they tend to recover more quickly after highly anxious times. Thus within this category, meditation and relaxation provide similar gains.